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TIL There's a 1.7 Billion Year Old Naturally Occuring Fission Reactor in Africa
(en.m.wikipedia.org)
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this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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Which is how we know it's safe to bury nuclear waste.
No. It just means the chain reaction stopped and it's no longer in uncontrolled meltdown. It's still emitting a ton of radioactivity though.
Yes, but it's all contained to the same area still after millions of years
Chernobyl is contained too. It's not safe.
It is safe if you don't enter the container; that's what contained means.
Why don't move next to it then?
Because uprooting their life to prove a random stranger wrong would be a figuratively bigger disaster than the event in reference.
Why would I move to a warzone in a country poorer than mine, of which I don't speak the language, know nobody over there, and don't have any connection to whatsoever?
No no no, it's been moved outside of the environment.
Is it a reaction, then?
It was. It no longer is.
The reason I added this comment at all, was I felt the headline title was a little misleading. We have evidence, of a naturally occurring fission reaction on Earth, a long long time ago.
It is estimated to have averaged under 100 kW of thermal power
I don't know what I expected but its does not seem much, its like the energy of 100 space heater
100kW can raise the temperature of 1L of water from 20C to 100C in 3.34 seconds. It's enough power to brew about 300 shots of espresso in 30 seconds. That seems like a lot to me.
1 kW is a lot if you put it into a small enough space. Or even 1 W, as my background in electronics design has shown me on occasion.
Of course, the title calls it a fission reactor and a 100 kW one would not be much. Would charge an electric car pretty nicely, though. Or make some mean espresso.
The thing to remember with this bad boy is they've got active gamma emitting fission products floating in it and (when it could still go critical) fast neutrons. Not s something you want to brew your coffee in, even without the heavy metal poisoning uranium oxide could give you.
What's cool about this reactor is it was doing something that we generally can't do too well. Unenriched uranium reactors tend to need heavy water or graphite to slow down the neutrons from fast to thermal to keep a reactor critical This guy used ground water.
That was a neat read, thanks!